I find the NBA salary cap confusing. Will the Blazers have a hard time kepping thier roster together?. Paying Aldridge and now Hibbert possibly. Then the contract of Wes mattews. Batum is a RFA and are commited to him so i can imgaine teams are going to offer him big money. Add JJ hickson to that list and the two high rookie contracts, is there enough money to go around?

They will have to match. To the poster with questions about the cap, Portland only extended the QO (qualifying offer) to Nicolas Batum. They did not extend it to JJ Hickson, making him an unrestricted free agent. That means Hickson is as good as gone, but it freed up space to offer Hibbert a max contract. The thing is, Indiana has even more cap space and more than likely do not want to take a step back by losing Hibbert. The Pacers more than likely wanted to get Hibbert at a better price, but Portland forces their hand here.

I am kind of surprised that Portland took this aggressive approach with Hibbert. They signed LaMarcus for less than Max, but they still would love to have a ready made center next to him. Wesley Matthews is making high 6 millions, so he is not taking up a lot of space. Raymond Felton and Jamal Crawford are off the books, which basically freed up the money to offer Hibbert.

Now, the key will be re-signing Nicolas Batum at hopefully a reasonable price. Nicolas more than likely will have a market, which will probably push him in the 8 figure range. Seeing that Indiana more than likely matches Hibbert's deal, Portland reportedly has interest in Eric Gordon (another player who would likely get his contract matched regardless of the amount).

If you want more information on Free Agents and an idea of teams salary cap figures, hoopshype has some solid information. They have a Free Agent listing and Salary Cap breakdown (not fully accurate, but will be updated with time). Here are the links:

You cant really place a value on a player's worth until you have seen the results. So I am not going to say someone is crazy for offering Hibbert that kind of money. That gives Portland great size and all he really has to do is bring the same thing he did in Indy. If they become winners, then its worth it.

The problem with offering a player like that a max contract is, how can you get any type of assurance from the players you surround them with? This is why its so hard to be dominant in winning titles....or even getting to the Finals in the first place. Even if Portland's rookies pan out, by the time they do and their rookie contracts are up, they will be looking for more money.

If Indy doesnt match, I am interested to see what Portland's plan is with their roster.

Pacers should have just sold their first round pick avoiding the guaranteed cap hold instead of drafting Plumlee. Now they are in a corner and if a team gives George Hill a solid offer they basically will use up their cap room just to retain their current roster. However all is not lost for Indiana though. Next year even with Hibbert on a max David West comes off the books. That means that they will have 39.2 mil committed to 4 players(Hibbert, Granger, Paul George team option, and George Hill) In this figure I even gave Hill an 8 mil/year cap figure which is a big overshot on what he will probably get. Really there are no other players that they would need to retain. Hansborough and Collison both would have qualifying offers but neither are guys you would break the bank for. So they realistically would have the type of cap room to offer a big contract to a Serge Ibaka or Al Jefferson or Milsap to add to the 4 of Hill, Paul, Granger, and Hibbert. Of course I'm sure the Pacers were hoping to get Hibbert back on 10-12 mil a year but you know the type of premium there is for true 7 footers in the league, if Asik is being offered 8 mil with the Rockets considering to bid higher if they must, I wouldn't call 4 years 58 million a waste on Hibbert. And they could still feasibly throw a max offer at Eric Gordon even though the Hornets almost certainly will match. Pacers are still in a good spot but not as great as once seemingly, plus I find it a bad move to stay in the first round and draft Plumlee a guy who honestly they probaby could have had if they traded down into the 2nd round. They could have traded the 26th pick for an early 2nd and cash and still had Plumlee or an equivalent player.

In free agency they don't play around and they frequently seem to "overpay" free agents that actually are worth it. They made a "huge" offer to Milsap that the Jazz ended up matching. That contract now looks like a bargain. They also made a "huge" offer for Wes Mathews, which the Jazz wish they had matched. Hibbert is a lock to be top-10 at his position for at least the duration of this contract and will likely be top-5. I think this is a smart move by Portland. Indi will match if they're smart. As a Jazz fan I get annoyed by Portland going after our guys, but there's no doubt they've made savvy moves over the last several years in free agency.

i think you said it best bloodshy imo. this is a clasic portland move and as much as i hate it when they do it to us i appreciate it at the same time because its worked good for them and it shows they will play hard ball and i respect that.

I have a feeling with the way contracts are going, that the NBA is going to soon end up with a lot of guys getting overpaid surrounded by guys getting underpaid. Teams are looking at having 3 guys to a max contract and filling that out with the scraps. It makes me wonder if more guys will consider going overseas if this trend keeps up. While I'm not sure of what a guy like OJ Mayo or even Anthony Randolph could be (if they are not there already), but just a few years ago, there would have been no doubt guys with some sort of talent and upside would at the very least have been restricted free agents even if the offer didn't get matched. Now teams are so concerned with salary cap pentalties, that they would rather not tie up the cap space.

I like that Hibbert has seemingly improved every year, but he reminds me of young big Z. A big, slow, but very skilled guy. He's not really a max player, but it's almost like he is a max player by default due to his position and lack of remotely competent centers. I think Larry Bird left, because he wanted to leave on a high note. I think he knew Hibbert was going to get overpaid and that they also needed to make some noise in free agency to keep moving forward.

This is what I call Free agency! Indiana will match, they just will, but I love what Portland did here, forcing a young and up and coming small market team into a cap dilema.

Now there is a possibility that Kevin Pritchard says, "Screw them, we love Roy, but we're not giving the freaking max". This does put Portland is a unique situation as well, but they must've gone over the risks of this.

And we're not done yet with young restricted centers getting twice as much money as tehy should, Asik got 8 million, and we still have McGee and Lopez left.

Tough decision for Indiana, but in the end I believe they will match, but it won't be an easy decision.

What was the point of the lockout if this overpayment of players keep happening? I mean seriously it is going to ruin the NBA where a few players on a team get a lot of money and the rest get nothing. The owners kept saying they make no money and keep overpaying, and it sets franchises back years with one mistake.

The point of the lockout was mainly to get the salary cap as a percentage of league revenue down. And the Owners got that. The Owners didn't really acknowledge that they have hired, in general, a bunch of idiots to be their GMs. So a guy like Hibbert gets Max Money which will constrain Portland or Indian's cap space for the next four years. Now if the Owners had put into the CBA a rule against them hiring idiots as their GM, then you wouldn't see this stuff. But they didn't, so we are basically back where we started except (a) we missed three months of basketball and (b) the salary cap is a few percentage points less than it was, which helps keep the idiot GMs from screwing up the profit making ability of the teams.

And to reiterate again, the claim during negotiations that the Owners don't make any money was a lie for negotiating purposes. It was posturing and throwing around funny numbers to win over the fans and the media or at least make the owners not look too greedy.

Pacers gotta let him go.... 14m a year for a guy avg 12-8.8 as a big man? you wont replace him but you can get another 10-7 starting center at 6m less a year.. would also let them be players in free agency.. Roy is good... but not THAT good.. regardless of the deterioration of the center position

It's not as bad a contract as it sounds. 4yrs/$58 mil. Avg salary of 14.5 mil...that's pretty much the going rate of a big skilled C. Nene got 13 mil, Gasol got 15. Chandler got 15 last summer. Deandre who has no skill but athleticism got close to 11. I really like what Portland did they're forcing Indy's hand and taking them out of the market for other FA's just that fast. If they don't match (which they're considering with setting up a meeting with Asik & contacting Kaman today) Portland lands themselves a formidable front line and they can still match Batum because they have his bird rights. Matthews doesn't cost that much and Lillard will be on a rookie contract for the duration of Hibbert's deal. Good move by Portland.